Venezuelan authorities are investigating accusations that Colombian paramilitaries took part in a 1999 plot to assassinate President Hugo Chavez.
According Miami newspaper El Nuevo Herarld, Venezuelan Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega ordered an investigation on an alleged plot to kill President Hugo Chavez. The plot would be executed by Colombian Paramilitaries and funded by Americans through former governor of the Venezuelan state of Tachira, Manuel Rosales.
Velasquez told El Nuevo Herald that Rosales met some Colombian paramilitaries in Ureña, Venezuela, and Cucuta, Colombia, in December 1999. Velasquez, who attended both meetings, says that Rosales offered US$ 25 million to kill Chavez. Jorge Ivan ‘el Iguano’ Laverde took the offer as long as Chavez came to the border Venezuelan towns of Ureña or San Antonio.
Laverde is in prison on charges of drug trafficking and crimes against humanity.
Velasquez also explained that he participated in the training of the squad that would murder President Chavez.
“This is a lie. The only plan in which I have been involved to ‘do away with’ Chavez has been the electoral plan,” Rosales, who requested political assylum in Peru, said via satellite from Lima, according to the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal. Rosales also showed his passport to prove that on December 23 and 24, he was in Aruba.
Rosales is a former governor of the Venezuelan State of Tachira, former mayor of the city of Maracaibo, and former Chavez’ contender for the Presidency of Venezuela.
Venezuelan authorities are also investigating accusations made by Rafael Garcia, former deputy director of the Colombian intelligence service, and Mauricio Llorente, former major of the Colombian army. Garcia alleges that Colombian authorities were involeved in a plot to kill Chavez. Llorente, who is in prison for allowing paramilitary to massacre civilians near the border of Venezuela, claims that there are about 2,000 paramilitaries in Venezuela who intend to murder Chavez.